Roanoke College released a poll in late October showing Romney ahead 49-44. This poll has a D+4 sample and showed Romney leading by 26% among Independents.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that enthusiasm for Obama in Northern Virginia is not what it was four years ago, while GOP enthusiasm is much stronger. Romney needs to win Virginia, and he will. (Romney by 3%)
Colorado - 9
Another state that appears to be basically tied. Let's look at those fun exit polls again. In 2008, Obama won the state by nine points. Republicans actually had a 31-30 turnout advantage over the Democrats, but Independent voters supported Obama by 10% over McCain.
In 2004, Bush beat Kerry in Colorado by five points. Republicans had a nine point turnout advantage that year, according to exit polls. Independents favored Kerry by seven percent.
Based on the above, one would expect the GOP to have a turnout advantage of around maybe 5% or so this year. So let's look at some recent polling in the state. Purple Strategies released a poll in late October showing Obama leading Romney 47-46. The poll shows Obama and Romney tied among Independent voters. They used a D+1 sample size. In other words, the pollsters apparently believe that enthusiasm for Obama in Colorado has actually increased since 2008. Unreal.
American Research Group also released a poll in late October. It showed Romney ahead of Obama 48-47. The poll uses an R+2 sample size, which is certainly more realistic than the Purple Strategies poll, but probably still undersamples Republicans/oversamples Democrats. Independents in this poll surprisingly favored Obama by 8%.
So let's look at a Marist poll from late October. It shows a tie race, 48-48. The sample was D+1, the same as Purple Strategies. Sigh.
Okay. How about the SurveyUSA poll from late October that shows Obama leading Romney 47-45? D+1 sample. Wow.
Look, these polls are almost certainly based on a false premise about what the electorate is going to be in Colorado. But even if they are correct about the composition of the electorate, the race is basically tied, and undecided voters tend to break for the challenger over the incumbent. Romney will win Colorado. (Romney by 3%)
Wisconsin - 10
Romney has not had a lead in Wisconsin since mid August. The two most recent polls from Rasmussen Reports have the race tied 49-49, but every other poll shows Obama ahead. The GOP has a superb ground game in Wisconsin after all the recall battles over the past two years, and the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, knows the state very well. Oh, yeah, and Romney's running mate Paul Ryan is a sitting congressman from Wisconsin. That helps, too. But I suspect all of that will only serve to keep the final outcome close. (Obama by 2%)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dan(Miller)
A good article and I like the conclusion that Governor Romney will win, even narrowly. However, to the extent that the conclusion relies on opinion polls, they have many inherent problems and reliance may be misplaced.
2 - Christopher Rose
Given that Romney is a proven liar that even betrayed his own father in law, I really hope he doesn't embarrass the USA by winning.
3 - Dr Dreadful
I see you've learned your lesson from four years ago, RJ, and this time around you're being much more realistic. (Well, at any rate, more realistic than the guy who wrote the blog article I still cherish from mid-2008 explaining in minute detail how Ron Paul was going to sweep into the White House by a landslide.)
I think you've called most of the battleground states correctly, including Florida. However, wishful thinking does make for an inherently unsound analysis. Romney is not going to win New Hampshire, although that probably isn't going to make much of a difference. As you say, it all comes down to Ohio, and there I'm afraid it doesn't look good for Rombles. He's led in only five of over 40 polls taken since the beginning of last month. I can buy some polls being out of whack, but not the majority of them.
People do, of course, change their minds, but with recent events in the northeast in mind I feel that change is going to tend to be in the President's favour.
4 - Josh
Great article. I hope you're right.
5 - Baronius
Any guesses on when we find out who won? If Ohio is close, the absentee and provisional ballots will be an issue. And neither of these guys seems like an early conceder to me.
6 - Nabber
I buy it all, except Wisconsin--you don't cite any analysis about the Independents as you did with the others. I find it hard to accept that Romney won't equal Walker's success. The state is in the process of going red.
7 - Dr Dreadful
Baronius, gathering together all of the absentee and mail-in ballots is probably going to take a while (2000 all over again, anyone?), but if Obama carries any one of Florida, Virginia or North Carolina (not that I think that's likely), Ohio won't even be an issue.
8 - Patchy
It's interesting to see the denial take hold on the left as evidenced by the repetitive 'Romney's a liar' refrain that is/was the last-gasp slogan of the Obama campaign and its true believers.
The 'liar' charge comes courtesy of, at worst, shifting positions during a long campaign but that hardly makes Romney unique among politicians. In fact, when Clinton did it we were told it was an art form. For some odd reason, the incumbent's supporters don't want to talk about the incumbent - and especially his subordinates - peddling falsehoods even in the most dire circumstances i.e. dead Americans.
9 - Glenn Contrarian
What causes me to bite my nails, so to speak, is the level of voter suppression and apparent voting machine tampering - especially in Ohio but elsewhere as well (see here), all of it in such a way that would benefit the Republicans. And what frustrates me no end is that the oh-so-patriotic Republicans seem to have no problem at all with tampering with elections, as long as the tampering benefits them. Such grand hypocrisy!
10 - RJ
Ugh. The total electoral college vote should read 285 for Romney, not 283. Is there any way an editor could go in and fix that?
11 - George
Great analysis, but nerve-wracking. It all comes down to Ohio, and Romney wins by "less than 1%". I don't know if I could take that kind of suspense. Uggh. . .
12 - Ron
The saddest thing is that we can vote out the traitorous leadership, but what can we do about the 49% of the people that actually like what Obama's administration has done to our Republic? You can't fix stupid.
13 - UCFan79
As an Ohioan, I accept that Ohio will go Romney but for different reasons:
1. The war on coal has turned eastern counties, normally democratic, into more likely voters for Romney. Coal and coal power are the source of too many jobs in those counties. In short, the state is so finely balanced between big city democratic support and urban/exurban/rural republican support that any upset in that apple cart will tilt the election. That upset cart will fall in Romney's direction.
2. The repubs own the machinery of the state government: governor, treasurer, attorney general, secretary of state, house, senate, supreme court. With the sec of state being the office that conducts elections, the chances of fraud are limited. With the governor and atty general having the prerogative to prosecute any fraud, the tilt is again toward the republicans. With the supremes being the near final deciders of any contest, the tilt is republican.
Final analysis....Ohio goes to Romney
14 - Christopher Rose
Re #12. it is far sadder that someone expects to be taken seriously when writing complete and utter drivel. Far too many Americans really need to grow up, sober up or both...
15 - Ron
Re #14. "If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
16 - Dan(Miller)
Re #s 2 and 14. To quote and turn back to it's author # 14,
it is far sadder that someone expects to be taken seriously when writing complete and utter drivel. Far too many Americans really need to grow up, sober up or both...
So, perhaps, do some who watch from afar. How, by the way, is Sunny Spain doing these days? Booming economy and tranquility for all, I suppose.
We should all praise the author of #s 2 and 14 for his great example of "complete and utter drivel." Three Cheers!
17 - Costello
Why should we take aeriously the predictions of author who only picks Repubs and doesn't know how to get an article corrected after eight years? No one with any sense thought McCain was going to win in the last few weeks.
18 - Carlo3b
I agree with most of his opinions, except, I believe Wisconsin is Romney, and Minnesota - 10, is a toss-up, advantage Obama, but by a whisker, if he does..
19 - Christopher Rose
Ron, spewing random and irrelevant quotes does nothing to strengthen your "argument".
Dan, it's sad to see you succumbing to the political partisan hysteria and marking atypically silly remarks. Hopefully when this obscenely expensive election is over sense will replace sensibility.
20 - Christopher Rose
However, to treat your sneering question with more respect than it deserves, apart from some typically boisterous mass demonstrations of political views, all part of the normal democratic process, by and large life in Spain, where I have happily been for the best part of three months now and will regret leaving next month, goes on much the same as it always has.
21 - Dan
Pretty convincing research RJ.
I tend to agree with a previous commenter that Wisconsin is slightly more likely to fall Romney's way. for the reasons you gave except with more enthusiasm.
The early vote counts by party in Ohio is the best of the story so far. flipped from four years ago.
I want to go on record as saying that biased oversampling of Dems really means a solid Romney win. No landslide, but enough to be a surprise.
22 - Frivolous D
I already made my prediction here.
That said, it'll be a nail-biter for all of us. I think Florida is Romney's with Virginia & Colorado bouncing blue and red so much that it's anyone's call.
The polls (skewed) are clearly breaking for Obama in NV, Iowa, MN, Ohio, WI & NH.
I'm giving this one to Obama with something between 281-303 e.v.
Contrarian, I share your anxiety about the many mitigating influences. Since I'm giving Romney FL anyway, Ohio is the state to watch. Maybe we can get some foreign observers for 2016.
23 - Dr Dreadful
For a bit of perspective, Nate Silver - the NYT's poll stats wonk whose analyses are automatically disregarded by most GOP fans because they don't predict a Romney win - had this to say about the possibility of bias. (It is to be stressed that he's talking about statistical, not human, bias.)
What it basically boils down to is that the race has reached the stage where the only chance Romney has of winning is if the polls are systematically biased in his opponent's favour.
24 - Frivolous D
Silver just bumped Obama's chances to 91.4%
No need to opine here. By Wed. morning he'll either be hailed a genius or charlatan.
25 - Dan
A 91% favorite is the rough equivalent of a 14 point favorite in an NFL game. I think it's safe to say Silver is an outlyer.
Calling Obama at 91% would have been too high in 2008 considering the margin of win. Certainly there is more enthusiasm for Repubs this time.
Don't know for sure of course, but recurrent oversampling of dems by 6 to 11% in virtually all polls sounds like a possible systematic bias.